


Paroxysm

by nelliecrain (orphan_account)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Bipolar Newton Geiszler, Drift Bond, Drift PTSD, Everyone Is Gay, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mako Mori Lives, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Drift (Pacific Rim), let them be happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-04-24 22:44:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14365257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nelliecrain
Summary: Newt's not getting any better.





	1. Aftermath

His fits were on average ten minutes apart, never surpassing two and a half minutes in length, and never draining Newt of too much energy so those dastardly beings could wrap their claws around his subconscious once more and wrack him with terror and horrifying spasms of pain Hermann could only imagine to comprehend, and could only stand and watch as it consumed him. It was like a wildfire. Hermann  _wished_  that he would become too weak for them to torture him any longer, wished he would give in to them already- and save himself the hurt, the trauma, the absolute horror of feeling your own body be torn apart by some ethereal being  _inside_  of you. He couldn’t even see what was hurting him, and surely couldn’t see Hermann, waiting and watching. Even if he was always there, Newt would never know how much he pleaded with whatever nonexistent gods the Earth believed in to let Newt go. To save him. But he could never live to know that, right?

He’d spoken at lengths to the medical team, and regrettably sobbed at lengths to Tendo, afterwards making the man swear of his life he’d never mention a soul what he’d heard from Hermann- and none of the people he’d spoken to in any form had given him a glimpse of hope for Newton’s recovery. Too far in his head, too experimental to medicate, all of the phrases and the dismay it had brought him flurried together and formed a general torment of gloom.

A panicked cry from beyond the one-sided glass brought Hermann abruptly from his uneasy thoughts, and he found himself staring through the glass as the smaller man was riveting by tremors and sputters of blood from his lips. Hermann stumbled to his feet instantly and pressed one hand against the window. The blood trailed down his chin, staining the white of his shirt, and Hermann’s eyes widened, mouth contorted in terror.

" _Help!_ "

-

Every time Hermann visited him, he didn't know what to expect.

It was never what he did.

Mathematics laid out everything simply for him, and this was what he liked about it. Every question had a solution and a systematic series of steps to find the said solution. There were rules to follow that could lucidly guide him through a query- and one outcome, one possibility, one expected and predicted output to a complex series of input. This was what he liked, and this was what he functioned off of. _Order_. 

But Newton had always been unpredictable, and despite the anxiety of simply not knowing that bothered him every day of their peership, there was something strangely enthralling about his spontaneity. Erratic unbelievability. A rush of adrenaline, a glimpse of a life of nonlinear expectations and indecisive steps in an unstable path.

That was biology. 

 _Kaiju_ biology. 

There was so much they did not know, and Newton had found himself right at home, happy to map new territories, while Hermann retreated to the safe shell of his predictable patterns and unchanging formulas. He felt sheltered, and it wasn't until he'd felt Newton's mind within his own had he really understood why he couldn't handle the orderly formality of mathematic solutions- and why Hermann himself couldn't handle the wild expanse of Newton's biological theories and escapades. 

Newt was sleeping, for the first time in days, he'd been told.

"Withdrawal," the K-Science medic offered with a shrug. "a fever breaking, we don't know. But it's a good sign. The patterns are changing."

Indeed they were, changing, out of his reach and control, and he knew he couldn't input any variables to make it right. Like Newton's study of life beyond genetic code, it was everchanging, and nothing could determine how this would turn out for him. His cells, multiplying, mutating, dispelling, adapting, to the Precursor's claw-like strings that pulled and prodded at his every neuron. 

Hermann for once in his life found himself giving in to an undeniable breathlessness of not knowing, and it was fucking terrifying.

-

And thus began the Paroxysm of Newton Geizler.

 


	2. Theoretical

It was times like these he wished he had something as tangible as mathematics to keep him tuned in to reality. With math, there was always a clear and definitive solution. It wasa reliable. _There_. But Newt knew it was all to easy to fall deeply in love with the wonders of biology; the way cells would evolve into such wonderful things; the thought that each animal though imprinted with a specific niche was inherently different from the ecosystem it inhabited, fitting in like a puzzle piece to make up this whole crazy world.

And now he was struggling for any sense of solution and end to a cause at all. It was kind of like withdrawal, in a way, his body screaming for a relapse of control. Between the grasp of the precursors and his own consciousness, there existed a grey area. And this was where he was. Blinking in and out of control, grappling for any sense of his own self he could. There would be an end, if Hermann was right about anything after all. There would be a solution, and this was just a step in the problem.   
  
Or so he hoped.

It was hard to determine time, as he found himself not sleeping very much, but if he had to guess it felt like a week, at most, had he been in this room. With nothing but the bare walls to keep him company, his own fearful mind, and the brief spots of clarity when he could open _his_ eyes and see the world around him.

Newt didn't want to think about what he'd done. What _they'd_ done. It was too much to even consider- and he wanted no part of remembering. But by some cruel nature, the memories replayed in his mind like a recording. Perhaps it was the precursors, forcing him through ever miserable thing they'd done, or himself, trying to get a grip on where his consciousness had been those ten years. 

But most of all, Newt missed his friends.

He didn't want to see them. Not like this. He couldn't control what _they_ said to his friends, and nor did he want to face their judgement. 

But _god_ , he wanted Hermann. 

He wanted Hermann to reassure him, to spell out some equation that would equal _okay_. He wanted that kind of practical understanding and he so wanted something to make him feel real and safe and here. 

It was terrifying, being alone with his own thoughts. Newt couldn't escape the blaring hatred and anger that was coursing through him. When it wasn't, _'you're worthless, Newton Geizler!'_ it was _'you've killed them all, Newton Geizler, you!'_ and he just wanted to shut it all out.

But he couldn't.

Damnit, ten years and he couldn't even realize _something was wrong with him._

_Nobody could._

Newt could clearly remember being oh so confused as to why he hadn't spoken to Hermann, and upon seeing him again, why he didn't want to be near him. Beyond the hardened layers, he felt overjoyed to see his former labmate again! Despite their differences, it'd been Hermann he felt closest to in the K-Science division, and more than anything Newton wanted to hug him right there- spread a grin across his lips and never let that man go again.

 _Why didn't I?_  

Now he knew, and it hurt more than most anything else that'd happened to him.

 


	3. Triple Event

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which three important things happen.

Mako had always been strong. 

Like her heartbeat across the monitor. Steady, stable, and definite. 

Beat, beat, beat. 

No falter, no drop in the rhythm, and it was a solid for Jake to lean on. Something to grab and hold on to, to keep him level with the rest of the Earth as it spun by so quickly. Mako was always the clearheaded one, and she seemed to always be right.

He _wasn't_ going to loose her. Not now. Not when her recovery was going so well, and he'd already been so close to her slipping away. 

 

Those moments in Gipsy blinked by like frames of film in his memory. Outstretched chromatic fingers scraping the paint just off, unable to save her, unable to just reach a little more and-

His own heartbeat started to race where he sat hunched over beside Mako's hospital cot. He straightened up with a start, taking a heaving breath and shaking his head. _Calm down, Jake, you've got work to do. Get to it._

He hadn't spoken to her in her waking hours yet- but, he knew he'd find a way to muster up the courage to see his sister again. She'd asked for him, Jake'd been told. Asked if he was okay.

"Mako..." The name slipped past his lips almost without thought in a hushed husk, barely scraping above a whisper. "You don't need to worry," _Everything will be fine._

 

* * *

 

 

Hermann caught him making his way out of the Shatterdome medical bay. He instantly latched on like a Kaiju mite, stumbling after the Ranger in a flurried panic. 

 

"You can't even consider it?" He hissed, clicks and footsteps echoing off of the hydraulic walls.

"Listen, Gottlieb," Jake was tilting his head slightly to look at Hermann, a look of growing irritation written across his expression. "I already told you. I can't do anything 'bout it until the guys at the med division give me the green light." the pilot shrugged off a jacket, throwing it over his shoulder and and leaning back against the bar that lead up to his bunk. 

Hermann's lip twitched as he stopped before the other, staring, watching. 

And then a huff. 

"Fine! I'll do it myself!"

 

* * *

 

 

"This is a bad idea, my guy, and you know it."

He'd asked Tendo to overlook this first experimental phase. After all, Hermann felt he could only trust two people in this entire damned facility, and one of them was strapped to a chair and possessed by ancient biological demons.

"I didn't ask you here to make comments," Hermann snapped. His face was all but pressed into the glass, hands shoved anxiously into sweater pockets and weight bobbing from heel to toe, hoping he didn't topple without the support of his cane. 

Tendo was the one to discourage it. 

And though it made Hermann sick to his stomach, he was right.

_Don't want to give him a potential weapon._

He looked asleep, but Hermann knew otherwise. Eyes closed, breaths shallow, a peaceful facade to cover up what real damage those things were doing to him under visible layers. What hells he withstood every time those eyes, green, bright, eager to learn, flickered open to face the fresh torture conceived by his psychological captors.

He could only assume they plagued him when he slept, too. And no rest was really rest when one could only witness their own slow destruction from the inside out. 

"I can only do so much, Herm. If he..."

Hermann's gaze flicked back at where Tendo sat monitoring the control board for the restraints, cameras, anything tech worthy in that excuse for a cell. 

"If he _reacts_." 

"Do it then." Hermann broke in abruptly, and Tendo looked down to the controls. "I'm ready, Tendo, I need to see him."

"Go ahead."

A silence overwhelmed the room as he made his way to the bulkhead sealing Newt's cell from the observation deck. One hand found it's way out of his pocket to guide him along the wall, and settle on the tight-sealed seam of the mechanized door.

It opened with a heavy hiss, screeching on unused rotors to pull the thing apart. Maximum security for the Shatterdome's least secure man.

 

Newt's eyes blinked open- _but it wasn't him_.

 

"Oh hiya, Herms."


	4. Fissure

It was like watching through glass.

That's _his voice- his mind-_

But Newt could only watch. Like a puppet, really, and less of a prisoner.

 

Isn't that what he'd always been?

 

The moment those doors slid open, he wanted to cry out. Let sobs roll through his being, let him feel _something_ other than _hurt_. 

He wanted Hermann and he wanted to talk to him and see him and feel his soft hands and hear him say they'd fix Newt. They'd fix _everything_. And he was _so_ close, and he was _right_ there- why couldn't he just cry out _hard enough_?  

_"Hermann! Hermann I'm here! I'm right here- I'm so sorry, Hermann, I'm so sorry!"_

His throat felt hollow and instantly he knew that he had no control now. 

A deep dread swallowed him from the center of his chest, and he felt everything go dark. 

 

* * *

  

"Let me talk to Newton Geizler."

For once, in the weeks and weeks his spirit had been torn, crushed, whirled around in search for a glimpse of hope, he felt confident. His voice was crisp and final and though he wavered on his feet, his dead-set expression told all anyone needed to know.

"Oh, _Doctor Gottlieb_ , Newt's gone." A flash of a cruel smile, and Hermann felt himself wince. He had to remind himself, once more, _this was not his Newt_.

"I'm not going to play your damned games," Hermann's voice bordered on a growl, tone dropping lower with each growing threat. "you haven't won. You will never win."

The precursors lolled Newt's head back, mouth open as he let out a sigh, and there was something devious underlying in that look.

"But Hermann," his head snapped back into place. Hands, strapped against the metal of the chair, stretched bloodied fingers out over the arm-rests, tapping against the steel. "we've already won."

He felt something snap, and he look a violent step forward, swaying toward Newt with warring balance. 

"You give him _back_ ," he realized, suddenly, he was yelling. "you give back Newton, you godforsaken demons!"

But the Precursors only laughed in his face.

And it was a hollow, scraping laugh, gasping for air as if he was drowning and laughing all at once. A knife slashing iron. A scream echoing out from his chest that wouldn't make it. And they didn't stop.

Hermann backed up instantly, horrified, feeling himself lose balance by the moment. He shook, backing up to hit the closed bulkhead, grabbing for support on the seam of the door. Something hurt, inside of him, and it wasn't his bad leg. 

But then all at once it stopped, like coming to an abrupt end of a ' _no solution'_ equation. The laughing caught in Newt's throat and stayed.

His eyes- they flickered-

A brightness returning, a foreign fear, something deep and fearful and full of _terror_ -

 

"...Newton...?"

 

His whisper broke the silence just so.

His voice was cracked, from yelling, from shock- he didn't know.

He found, he didn't _care_.

 

Newt's lips parted, and it took him a moment to speak, words dry and light.

"I'm sorry, Hermann,"

And in his shock, Hermann didn't move from where he stood backed against the wall, eyes wide, tongue tied in disbelief.

 

It was over like the drop of a hat.

 

Newton's body writhed, thrashing in the restraints, and an unnatural scream riveted through his lungs. 

 

Hermann couldn't move.

_Newt was still alive._

 


End file.
